The one-day increase for June 30 totaled $165,931,038,264.30 – bigger than the entire annual deficit for fiscal year 2007 and larger than the $140 billion in savings the new health care bill will produce over its first 10 years. The figure works out to nearly $1,500 for every U.S. household, or more than 10 times the median daily household income.

Daily debt calculations jump and fall, and big shifts are common. But all three of the biggest one-day debt increases have occurred under the tenure of President Obama, and all of the top six have been in the past two years – an indication of just how quickly the pace of deficit spending has risen under Mr. Obama and President George W. Bush.

This sort of spending would not be possible without a central bank that can create money out of thin air and loan it to Congress and charge interest on it.  And the more money Congress and the Fed create, the more inflation there is, and the less the dollar is worth.

This is exactly what we do not need in the middle of an extreme recession. But until some congressmen get a spine or some voters learn a little more about proper government, it’s an inevitable spiral downward until the next crash.

Returning to the Constitutionally mandated gold standard would quickly put an end to all this irresponsible spending.

via U.S. marks 3rd-largest, single-day debt increase – Washington Times.

Berwick explained that there are three steps to “comparative effectiveness research.” The first is to determine whether a therapy works or not. The second is to determine how well the therapy works compared to other therapies. The third is to do a cost-benefit analysis.

“If a new drug or procedure is effective, and has some advantage over existing alternatives,” Berwick said, “then does the incremental benefit justify the likely additional cost?”

Now, in a free country where people freely chose to pay for their own health care with their own money, this is a good question for any prudent consumer. It is exactly that “free market force” that Berwick implored the British socialists not to put their faith in.

But in a country where the government has taken regulatory and fiscal control of the health care system—where the state is subsidizing most people’s care—and where government bureaucrats make the decisions about who gets what treatment, this question is not the animating moving force behind the invisible hand of the market, it is the dark materialistic spirit behind the iron hand of a life-and-death tyranny.

Berwick went on to say, “any health care funding plan that is just must redistribute wealth.”  Meaning, of course, the wealth must be redistributed to the government which pays for the care.  You and I will be taxed into poverty, with the hope that this will make us more reliant and subservient to our bureaucratic overlords.

via CNSNews.com – Obama Names Rationing Czar to Run Medicare.

It is well past time to disband all unconstitutional branches of the federal government, put those people back into the private sector, and shrink the government down to the minimum size necessary.

If the agreement with BP was an isolated event, perhaps we might hope that it would not be a precedent. But there is nothing isolated about it.

The man appointed by President Obama to dispense BP’s money as the administration sees fit, to whomever it sees fit, is only the latest in a long line of presidentially appointed “czars” controlling different parts of the economy, without even having to be confirmed by the Senate, as Cabinet members are.

Those who cannot see beyond the immediate events to the issues of arbitrary power — vs. the rule of law and the preservation of freedom — are the “useful idiots” of our time. But useful to whom?

via Is U.S. Now On Slippery Slope To Tyranny? – IBD – Investors.com.

Few things are more illustrative of the need for an informed electorate than a timely episode of Jaywalking.

YouTube – Jaywalking – 4th of July (Embarrassing!).

An advisory panel to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended that every person be vaccinated for the seasonal flu yearly, except in a few cases where the vaccine is known to be unsafe.

[...]

The H1N1 swine flu scare of the past year played a major role in the committee’s about face, both because the disease killed many people falling outside the current recommended vaccine demographic and because it raised public awareness of and demand for vaccines.

Truthfully, it was the government’s propaganda that raised public awareness and demand for vaccines.  H1N1 was actually less dangerous than the normal seasonal flu, and it’s difficult to really say how many people were affected by it, because early in the season, the CDC instructed caregivers to stop testing for H1N1, and to just call every instance of “flu-like symptoms” another “swine flu case.”

via U.S. government panel now pushing “vaccinations for all!” No exceptions….

Congress has no authority under the Constitution to control what health insurance your purchase, and these mandates should be vigorously ignored and fought.

Therefore, effective March 23:

• Individuals seeking new or alternative coverage can only buy policies that “comply with Affordable Care Act provisions from which grandfathered health plans are exempted.”
• Groups seeking new or alternative coverage (obviously including new groups) are in the same boat.
• As shown earlier this morning, any changes beyond trivial to existing group or individual policies will cause those policies to lose their grandfathered status, forcing those plans to “comply with Affordable Care Act provisions.”

Thus, those looking to purchase new policies or who make even minor changes to existing policies that lead to de-grandfathering will have three choices:

• ObamaCare's specified minimum coverage levels, which are far higher and far more expensive than typical private plans.
• Coverage that is more generous and therefore even more expensive than ObamaCare's specified minimum — but not too generous. As commenter Gary Hall at the previous NewsBusters post noted, if one has coverage that is considered overly generous, it will run the risk of being considered a “Cadillac” plan subject to a 60% excise tax. By 2018, when that tax takes effect, the distance between ObamaCare's high-threshold minimum coverage and where the “Cadillac tax” kicks in may not be very great. A majority of large-employer plans and plans at many small professional enterprises may end up being subject to the tax.
• Paying penalties as individuals for not buying insurance or as employers for not covering employees.

via Draft ObamaCare Regs Vindicate IBD’s 2009 ‘Individual Private Medical Insurance Is Illegal’ Claim | NewsBusters.org.

“If an economic boycott is truly what you desire, I will be happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power agreements so Los Angeles no longer receives power from Arizona-based generation,” wrote Arizona Corporation Commissioner Gary Pierce to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa, in a May 18 letter.

via Arizona responds to L.A.’s boycott with offer to pull plug – May. 20, 2010.

I’m telling you, it’s tough to preside over such infantile local leaders.  They are very fortunate that I respect the Tenth Amendment, or I’d be down there with paddles and corners, and tell that America-hating Villaraigosa to decide which country he wants to serve, and to move there.

The magnitude of this is almost incomprehensible. Nancy Pelosi and the leadership in the House of Representatives are telling us four things.

First and foremost, we are being told that members of Congress will no longer abide by the Constitution of the United States and are thereby violating their oath of office.

Second, members of Congress will no longer be representing the will of the American people who elected them but instead are representing the will of President Obama and his vision of a socialist America.

Third, members of Congress are done with allowing the American people to even participate in the process. Everything will be done in secret and your right to know what is being done to you will be ignored.

Last, but not least, members of Congress have concluded that we are not bright enough to know what is happening anyway so they think we will reelect them and be grateful for all they have done for us.

via THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CONSTITUTION – Connelly.

Last night, the House of Representatives passed health care reform and moved the bill to the President’s desk for a final signature.

The bill is littered with tax increases in order to fund the expansion of health coverage for Americans, and the Reconciliation Act, now in the Senate, has similar increases.

via New Taxes In The Healthcare Bill.

The paradox I still do not understand is: if healthcare is a right, why are we fined for not exercising it?

Will the Democrats at some point begin fining people who do not own guns, who do not practice religion, or who do not peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances?

“60 Minutes” did a fabulous exposé Sunday on Medicare fraud that should be required viewing for all people who support a government run healthcare program in this country.

The facts and figures presented by CBS’s Steve Kroft were disturbing as were the details concerning how shysters bilk the system for an estimated $60 billion a year.

Reader’s Digest ran a similar story in the October 2009 issue. Unfortunately, after running off many atrocious examples of criminals bilking the system (and taxpayers) of billions of dollars, Michael Crowley completely misses the core issue by concluding:

The Justice Department and HHS have finally stepped up efforts to crack down on such abuse. Since last October, they’ve won 300 convictions and recovered nearly $1 billion. But most watchdogs agree that’s just a start. More funding and investigators are needed.

New laws and regulations are needed too.

What new laws and regulations could possibly be needed?  Is fraud not yet illegal?  Is it not yet illegal to steal from taxpayers and the government? How about identity theft? Filing false paperwork?  Every example cited in both the Reader’s Digest and 60 Minutes stories was of something that’s already illegal.  And yet, government eternally uses their failure as justification for more power and funding.

The 60 Minutes story got closest to the core problem:

Later, Kroft asked Waterman, “There’s something I don’t understand. I mean, you’re saying essentially people just fill out the phony paperwork, they send a bill to Medicare and they pay it.”

That is the most obvious symptom of the problem.  The government does not provide any services.  They never see patients.  All they do is pay people for submitting paperwork.  Anyone who can submit paperwork can receive money in exchange.

And these people claim they can somehow save enough money by refining the current system to pay for their entirely government-run system.  I say they are crazy liars.

Now, you’ll notice I said that is a symptom.  This is the core problem with Medicare and Medicaid:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The real problem, the core fraud, is the hundreds of billions of dollars the feds are fraudulently stealing from the entire nation by maintaining these unconstitutional programs.  There is no constitutional justification for their existence, and yet, on a scale that makes the criminals they are prosecuting drool with envy, the thieves in Congress fill out the phony paperwork, send the bill to the taxpayers, and steal hundreds of billions of dollars from the productive members of this great nation.